Yet it lingered a while with Dick.

Twice now he had met Slade and he felt that he would meet him yet again at points far apart.
Dawn came slow and gray in a cloudy sky, but the sun soon broke through.
The heat returned and the earth began to dry.

The three colonels felt it necessary to give their men rest and food, and let them dry their uniforms, which had become wet in many cases, despite their overcoats and heavy cloaks.
They were now in a deep cove of the great Valley of Virginia, with the steep mountains just behind them, and far beyond the dim blue outline of other mountains enclosing it on the west.

As the fires blazed up and the men made coffee and cooked their breakfasts, Dick's heart leaped.
This was the great valley once more, where so much history had been made.
Lee and Grant were deadlocked in the trenches before Petersburg, but here in the valley history would be made again.

It was the finest part of Virginia, the greatest state of the Confederacy, and Dick knew in his heart that some heavy blows would soon be struck, where fields already had been won and lost in desperate strife.
But the men were very cheerful.